Likkutei Amarim Chapter 32 · 5785

00:02 Speaker 1 I came yesterday, wow, and all that. We’ll study with Yael; I won’t study [unclear].

00:05 Speaker 2 Of course.

00:05 Speaker 1 Listen, I didn’t give up, though.

00:09 Speaker 2 So why didn’t you write to me? Because you made an effort. Wow.

00:15 Speaker 1 Like that, for the wedding. What? What’s this? The month of Adar—come on, it’s fine. The month of Adar, the month of Adar is... it’s already the month of Adar. It’s fine.

00:34 Speaker 2 Hello, everyone. Okay, let’s go.

00:38 Speaker 1 Can you hear me, Dina?

00:40 Speaker 2 What happened to you?

00:40 Speaker 1 Want some tea?

00:41 Speaker 2 Oh, help quickly.

00:43 Speaker 1 I’m saying, at home he makes coffee, fusses with it, and then drinks something.

00:47 Speaker 2 More coffee?

00:47 Speaker 1 Then drink water. I mean, what’s the point of cold coffee?

00:50 Speaker 2 No, the caffeine.

00:52 Speaker 1 No.

00:52 Speaker 2 The caffeine wakes you up.

00:53 Speaker 1 What?

00:54 Speaker 2 It wakes you up.

00:55 Speaker 1 Yes.

00:55 Speaker 2 That’s the point.

00:56 Speaker 1 Yes, yes.

00:57 Speaker 2 I like to drink it slowly.

00:58 Speaker 1 Why slowly?

00:59 Speaker 2 To study, to study. That’s what it’s called.

01:01 Speaker 1 Right, that’s how you enjoy it.

01:04 Speaker 2 Okay, Chagit, make him another cup of coffee.

01:06 Speaker 9 All right, we’re... we’re going to study chapter 32 today. It’s a very short chapter, and there are a few special things about it. Maybe we’ll begin by just telling the story. Not everyone knows that in the first edition of Tanya—what’s called Tanya Mahadura Kama, meaning the first edition—chapter 32 wasn’t there. It was added later. When the Alter Rebbe wrote Tanya by hand and people copied it from one another, there was no chapter 32. Tanya had only fifty-one chapters. Chapter 30 wasn’t there, and chapter 32 wasn’t there. When the Alter Rebbe came to print Tanya—

02:00 Speaker 2 Outside the door. I ran over to you, I said—

02:11 Speaker 1 She’s a stranger to the rabbi.

02:14 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:16 Speaker 1 How exciting, yes.

02:20 Speaker 2 Come on.

02:22 Speaker 1 I made steak here.

02:24 Speaker 2 Yes.

02:26 Speaker 1 Do you have cups for the steak?

02:29 Speaker 2 Yes, thank you. The usual.

02:31 Speaker 1 Okay. Chagit, what does “always” mean?

02:36 Speaker 2 No.

02:37 Speaker 1 No.

02:40 Speaker 9 We’ve mentioned several times that the Alter Rebbe didn’t want to print Tanya. That wasn’t his way. He wanted it to remain in... But because of the errors in the copies, and because the misnagdim deliberately inserted errors and heretical ideas into their copies of Tanya, there was no choice: it had to be printed. And when the Alter Rebbe did print it, he added two chapters that hadn’t been in the original.

03:05 Speaker 1 How did you find the original chapters?

03:07 Speaker 9 What? What do you mean?

03:08 Speaker 1 How do we have the original chapters he wrote?

03:10 Speaker 9 Mahadura Kama. There’s a...

03:12 Speaker 1 How does that work? Is it, like, in the Rebbe’s possession?

03:17 Speaker 9 It was published. There’s a book called Tanya Mahadura Kama.

03:21 Speaker 1 No, I mean the originals.

03:24 Speaker 9 What do you mean, the originals? The ones that...

03:26 Speaker 1 Yes, the manuscripts.

03:28 Speaker 9 There is a printed Tanya Mahadura Kama, and it has the original chapters.

03:34 Speaker 1 Yes, I don’t know about the... Is there, like, an actual Tanya, the book itself, or did they print from it?

03:42 Speaker 9 It’s the... Until Tanya was printed, until the Alter Rebbe printed Tanya, there were no printed editions. The first version was handwritten; people copied it from one another.

03:52 Speaker 1 I understand. I’m asking again: the Alter Rebbe’s original manuscript.

03:56 Speaker 9 The Alter Rebbe’s original manuscript. I don’t know whether all of it still exists. In fact, the title page of Tanya says, and the rabbis say, “The manuscripts have vanished.” Apparently, not all of it exists. Some does, because there are photographs. At the back, there are always photographs of a few pages.

04:11 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:12 Speaker 9 I’ve never investigated exactly what exists and what doesn’t, but you can...

04:15 Speaker 1 They have them in the archives in Moscow; that’s known. I don’t know if these particular ones are there, but many old manuscripts of the Rebbe of Liadi are there...

04:24 Speaker 9 And today everything is available. Everything they have in Moscow is online today. Everything.

04:29 Speaker 1 Yes, but the original, I mean.

04:30 Speaker 9 The original is there. But if you want to look at it, everything is online. They’ve photographed it all, and you can see it all. It’s all accessible. On Levin’s library site, on Berel Levin’s site, it’s all there. There are several versions, and the Rebbe also cited differences between versions. In any case...

04:52 Speaker 1 What did the Rebbe...

04:52 Speaker 9 What did the Rebbe add when he printed it?

04:55 Speaker 1 Can I ask for something else?

04:56 Speaker 9 Oh, chapter 30.

04:58 Speaker 1 Come, come, come. Make it black and strong. Just...

05:02 Speaker 9 If you remember, we discussed chapters 29 and 30. Those were the two chapters in which the Alter Rebbe offers advice on how to break oneself in order to overcome dullness of the heart. Now, chapter 30 did exist in Mahadura Kama, but it wasn’t part of Likkutei Amarim; it was part of Igeres Hateshuvah. Near the beginning of Igeres Hateshuvah, in chapter 3, there’s also a lengthy discussion of how a person needs to break himself as part of teshuvah. When the Alter Rebbe came to print Tanya, he simply took a large section from chapter 3, removed it from Igeres Hateshuvah, and put it into Likkutei Amarim, among the suggestions for dealing with dullness of the heart, as chapter 30. And chapter 32—on our level of understanding, we don’t... The Rebbe didn’t speak about this, and we don’t know. But seemingly, since the entire dispute against the Alter Rebbe and against Chassidus was bound up with, and grew out of, baseless hatred, perhaps that’s why the Alter Rebbe saw fit to print chapter 32. It speaks about Ahavas Yisroel, about loving others without conditions—even wicked people, even the lowliest of the low, even someone who doesn’t deserve it. Perhaps that’s why he specifically wanted it printed within Tanya itself. That’s simply how it seems on our level of understanding; it’s not something written anywhere. It’s more of a feeling. The Rebbe addresses this special addition from two perspectives. First of all, what is it doing here? What is a chapter about Ahavas Yisroel doing in the middle of Tanya? How is it connected? Tanya is a book of guidance for beinonim. How should a beinoni serve Hashem? This doesn’t seem part of the subject. So the Rebbe explains that chapter 32 explains the advantage of what’s discussed in chapter 31. In chapter 31, the Alter Rebbe said that after reflecting on chapters 29 and 30, after contemplating how much you break yourself down and lower yourself in your own eyes, you might become very sad and weary. When you’re sad, you can’t serve Hashem. So he says: On the contrary, it’s precisely by breaking himself down that a person can reach true joy. Why? Because when can there be true joy? When a person feels the soul’s pain, he can also feel the soul’s joy. As long as he doesn’t feel how distressed the soul is, he can’t feel the joy it has in fulfilling mitzvos either. So first, a person needs to make himself understand how much his soul suffers within his body because of his character traits, because of his animal soul, because of the things he has done, and because of what he could have done but didn’t. Only after a person reflects at length on how his soul is in exile and how much it suffers can he then think: By fulfilling a mitzvah, I bring it out of exile. He can feel the soul’s joy, and he’ll have true joy. In other words, feeling true joy depends on feeling genuine pain. After explaining that at length, he comes to chapter 32 to tell us the advantage of this. First he discussed how to reach joy, and now he discusses the advantage of joy. So it’s true that this isn’t exactly part of serving Hashem, but it continues chapter 31 by explaining the advantage of joy. That’s—

07:22 Speaker 9 ...breaking yourself down, crushing yourself, and making yourself small in your own eyes—you might become very sad and weary. When you’re sad, you can’t serve Hashem. He says: On the contrary, it’s precisely by breaking himself down that a person can reach true joy. Why? Because when can there be true joy? When a person feels the soul’s pain, he can also feel the soul’s joy. As long as he doesn’t feel how distressed the soul is, he can’t feel the joy it has in fulfilling mitzvos either. So first, a person needs to make himself understand how much his soul suffers within his body because of his character traits, because of his animal soul, because of the things he has done, and because of what he could have done but didn’t. Only after a person reflects at length on how his soul is in exile and how much it suffers can he then think: By fulfilling a mitzvah, I bring it out of exile. He can feel the soul’s joy, and he’ll have true joy. In other words, feeling true joy depends on feeling genuine pain. After explaining that at length, he comes to chapter 32 to tell us the advantage of this. First he discussed how to reach joy, and now he discusses the advantage of joy. So it’s true that this isn’t exactly part of serving Hashem, but it continues chapter 31 by explaining the advantage of joy. That’s—

08:59 Speaker 10 It’s an important chapter.

09:00 Speaker 9 What?

09:00 Speaker 10 Is it considered an important chapter in Tanya?

09:03 Speaker 9 It’s an important chapter, and that’s why we’re spending so long on the introduction.

09:06 Speaker 10 Right, because we learned it by heart, and I asked myself, why this one in particular? But—

09:11 Speaker 9 So now you’re hearing why. It’s a chapter that was added later, and we need to explain what it’s doing here.

09:17 Speaker 10 Rabbi Amir gave a class for children, and I was really taken with it. He kept telling them, “At the end I... at the end, I’m with you.”

09:26 Speaker 11 Not all of it. Yes.

09:27 Speaker 10 Yes, because it’s a familiar chapter.

09:29 Speaker 9 Not a short chapter—some sections are short.

09:31 Speaker 10 I got as far as—

09:32 Speaker 9 The large letters, though. And beyond all that, the Rebbe says that everything happens through Divine providence. And since the subject of Ahavas Yisroel was actually printed in Tanya as chapter 32, it seems that Ahavas Yisroel is the heart of Tanya. We’ll also see within the chapter itself that Ahavas Yisroel—truly loving another person—is not just the backbone around which all of Torah and mitzvos revolve. It’s the life-force at the heart of all Torah and mitzvos. As Hillel the Elder said about Ahavas Yisroel: “This is the entire Torah, and the rest...” What does “the rest” mean?

10:23 Speaker 10 The rest.

10:24 Speaker 9 The rest “is its explanation.” What does that mean? An explanation. The entire Torah is an explanation of the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel. Now, that’s something we need to understand. How is the mitzvah of tefillin an explanation of Ahavas Yisroel?

10:40 Speaker 10 And how is there so little Ahavas Yisroel?

10:41 Speaker 9 What? If Hillel the Elder said that the entire Torah, all of it, is an explanation of the mitzvah of Ahavas Yisroel, how is the mitzvah of circumcision an explanation of Ahavas Yisroel? How? What’s the connection? Yes. I’ll speak about that later. So the central idea that will be explained is that a person has limbs, and a heart and brain that direct those limbs. Right? So, in a person, what’s the difference between the heart...? What does a person’s heart do? What does a person’s brain do? Why do we need both a heart and a brain?

11:23 Speaker 10 They communicate.

11:25 Speaker 9 What is the heart’s function? What is the brain’s function?

11:28 Speaker 10 The spiritual side.

11:31 Speaker 11 It connects, you’re saying?

11:32 Speaker 10 The mind—contemplation.

11:34 Speaker 9 What?

11:34 Speaker 10 Contemplation, understanding.

11:37 Speaker 9 Go on.

11:37 Speaker 10 Something to do with the eyes.

11:39 Speaker 11 The heart—an engine, emotion.

11:42 Speaker 10 It activates, activates the—

11:45 Speaker 9 The heart gives life to the limbs, and the mind directs them. The mind tells the limbs what to do, but without a heart they wouldn’t be alive. Simple.

11:59 Speaker 10 But without a mind they wouldn’t be alive either.

12:02 Speaker 9 That’s according to biology. But no, that’s the mind’s role. The mind’s role is to tell the eye: now look here, now look there. To tell the ear: I want to hear this; I don’t want to hear that. To tell the legs: walk now, don’t walk now, and where to walk. The mind directs the limbs.

12:18 Speaker 10 Even physically, there’s such a thing as brain death, where the heart keeps beating and the body is paralyzed and unconscious.

12:24 Speaker 9 Right. A new study about that came out just this week, but that’s not for here.

12:29 Speaker 10 A study about what?

12:30 Speaker 9 No.

12:31 Speaker 10 A medical study?

12:32 Speaker 9 Yes.

12:35 Speaker 10 There’s a parallel. There are many parallels between the... There are many cases where the heart is working and the brain no longer is.

12:43 Speaker 9 There are also cases, now scientifically documented, where both the brain and the heart have stopped working and the person is still alive.

12:49 Speaker 10 How is he alive?

12:50 Speaker 9 All right.

12:51 Speaker 10 That’s not science. It has to do with research.

12:57 Speaker 9 An interesting study. Fine. No, it isn’t relevant to us. But in practice, as we’ve said many times, when Chassidus gives an analogy, we don’t get into the technical details of how it actually works. As far as what we experience goes, we feel that the mind directs the limbs and the heart gives them life. What does that mean in Tanya? Where is Tanya’s mind, and where is Tanya’s heart? What in Tanya tells us what to do, and what is Tanya’s source of life?

13:37 Speaker 10 Chapter 27?

13:39 Speaker 9 So the Rebbe revealed to us that Ahavas Yisroel is the heart, the life of the entire Tanya, and later in the chapter we’ll discover why. What is Tanya’s mind? What is the—

13:49 Speaker 10 Chapter 28? Isn’t everything else just straightforward? Why the heart?

13:58 Speaker 9 Everything else is straightforward.

13:59 Speaker 10 Ah.

14:01 Speaker 9 There’s a story, there’s a story. I don’t remember who it’s told about. I have his name written down somewhere; I need to find it. There was a Jew in the previous generation, one of the well-known mashpi’im—or one of the less well-known mashpi’im, more accurately—but he was a prominent, respected, great mashpia. I can’t remember his name right now. He was deeply immersed in studying Tanya himself, and he was always urging the students to study, study, study it by heart, to know it, to study it, to understand it. Once he suggested that they test him. “Say a word or two from Tanya, and I’ll tell you which chapter it’s in.” They began asking him, and kept asking, and he really... It’s very difficult: someone gives you two words with no context at all. But yes, he knew where every word came from. Until they asked him: Where does Tanya say, “And let him not be a fool”? Do you remember that?

14:57 Speaker 10 Is “fool” spelled with a tes or a tav?

14:58 Speaker 9 Huh? With a tes.

15:00 Speaker 10 Tes.

15:00 Speaker 9 Where does Tanya say, “And let him not be a fool”? We learned it not long ago. One of the last chapters we studied.

15:08 Speaker 10 With a tes?

15:09 Speaker 9 Yes.

15:09 Speaker 10 Ah, that he shouldn’t think he’s a tzaddik.

15:11 Speaker 9 “And let him not be a fool and engage in elevating the emotions of the foreign thought, as is known, for those things were said only about tzaddikim.” So they asked him where it says, “Let him not be a fool.” This time he didn’t answer. He smiled and said, “It’s written on every line.” All right, chapter 32: “And through fulfilling the above”—the things discussed in the previous chapter—“so that his body is despised and loathsome in his eyes, and his joy is solely the joy of the soul.” Through that... In the previous chapter he explained at length that precisely this makes it possible to reach true joy, wonderful joy, great joy. “And his joy is solely the joy of the soul. This is a direct and easy path to fulfilling the mitzvah ‘Love your fellow as yourself’ toward every Jewish soul, from great to small.” First of all, what’s the connection? If I know that my body—if I actually feel... What is he saying? If I feel that my body is loathsome and despicable, that it interferes with serving Hashem and pulls me toward worldly matters, and that I need to disregard it, devote my whole self to Torah and mitzvos, and rejoice in the joy of the soul—this will lead... From here I’ll have a direct and easy path to loving everyone? Huh? Good question. First of all, what’s the connection? Second, what does “a direct and easy path to fulfilling the mitzvah ‘Love your fellow as yourself’” mean? There’s something very deep hidden here. All the Torah commentators ask: What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want from us with this mitzvah? How can the Torah command us to love someone else the way I love myself? When a person loves someone else, why does he love him? There’s some reason. He’s good-looking, he’s strong, he has good character traits, he has money. There’s a reason I love him, so I love this person and not that one. Right? Yes? Does a person need a reason to love

17:47 Speaker 9 himself?

17:49 Speaker 12 No.

17:51 Speaker 9 What did our Sages say? “Love covers all transgressions.” A person loves himself even when he does the worst things and knows he’s doing bad things.

17:58 Speaker 12 So what?

17:59 Speaker 9 So what? He sees nothing wrong with it. He may be ashamed when someone else sees him doing those things, but to himself, “I’m fine. What I’m doing is fine.” Right? That’s called self-love, love that doesn’t depend on any reason. Love for someone else depends on a reason. When the reason disappears, the love disappears. A person’s love for himself... it doesn’t have a reason, and he doesn’t need one. He loves himself because he loves himself. Right? So how can it be... Why does the Torah command us to do something impossible? How can I love someone else the way I love myself? I think it would be hard to find Torah commentators who haven’t dealt with this question and offered all sorts of very interesting answers—and every one of them, without exception, sidesteps it. So Rashi writes: What does “Love your fellow as yourself” mean? Your “fellow” is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. You have to love Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I can love Hakadosh Boruch Hu the way I love myself.

19:16 Speaker 12 That’s Rashi?

19:17 Speaker 9 Yes. Other commentators say... What does “Love your fellow as yourself” mean? Treat the other person the way you treat yourself. Not in your heart; not that you should feel love for him. That’s impossible. The way you handle your own money, handle the other person’s money the same way, and so on. Right? Just as you don’t like being shouted at, don’t shout at someone else.

19:45 Speaker 12 What is hateful to you.

19:46 Speaker 9 “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” Yes, and commentators offer explanations. There are many, many other explanations of what the Torah... what exactly the commandment is here. Because loving someone else the way I love myself—it’s always been clear that that’s impossible. Right? Then the Alter Rebbe comes along, and what does he say here? That through what we learned in the previous chapter—that the body should be loathsome and the joy should be the joy of the soul—this is a direct path, not just any path to loving Hashem, but a direct and easy path to fulfilling the mitzvah “Love your fellow as yourself” toward every Jewish soul. All right, he means it literally: everyone can love someone else the way he loves himself, with self-love that needs no reason. How? By thinking about and contemplating what we learned in the previous chapter. Well, now it’s clearer. It seems less clear, doesn’t it? So he explains. “For since...” He gives three reasons. First, “Since his body is despised and loathsome to him, while the soul and spirit—who knows their greatness and their stature at their root and source in the living G-d?” What matters most to him? The soul. For a person to whom the soul, not the body, is what matters most, how will he look at another Jew?

21:28 Speaker 13 By looking at his own soul?

21:29 Speaker 9 At the other person’s soul. For someone to whom bodily matters aren’t important, when you look at another Jew, you won’t look at him in terms of his body. You’ll look at him in terms of his soul. Right?

21:41 Speaker 13 Yes.

21:43 Speaker 9 What about the other person’s soul? Its root is in the living G-d. Where is the root of my soul? Also in the living G-d. Right? We’ve learned several times about the difference between the name Havayah and the name Elokim.

22:03 Speaker 13 Yes.

22:05 Speaker 9 Do you remember learning things like this? The name Havayah—that is called unity. Yes, the Divine light in which everything is in simple unity, the name above the worlds. And Elokim is the source of tzimtzum, of judgments, of gevurah. Right? We’ve learned this several times. Havayah is unity, and Elokim is tzimtzum, division, details. So at the source of Jewish souls, there are differences: one person has the soul of a man and another the soul of a woman; there are higher souls and lower souls, souls from this world and that world, souls with more heart or more... There are distinctions among souls. It says in chapter 2 that there are tens of thousands of different levels among souls. Where does that come from? It comes from the living Elokim. So if, for me, the main thing is the soul, and both my soul and his have their source in the living Elokim, who says my soul is higher than his? After all, we learned at the end of chapter 2, if you remember, that it’s possible for a great and lofty soul to descend and become the son of a lowly, contemptible person. And so on—that’s at the end of chapter 2. Do you remember those words? Do you remember or not? Yes. So there could be someone whose body, talents, and appearance make him seem, as they say, a wreck, or worse—much, much less interesting. He doesn’t have my talents, he has bad character traits, and I don’t know what else. He’s also a wicked person, and he has no money, and he’s ugly. His soul could be higher than mine. If I look at another Jew from the perspective of the soul—because for me the soul is what matters. Why is the soul what matters to me? Because I’ve just learned chapters 29, 30, and 31, and it’s already tangible to me that the body is nothing and the soul is all that matters, the soul. But

24:02 Speaker 9 perhaps his soul is higher than mine.

24:06 Speaker 13 Someone who had been with the Rebbe told us a story about those words, “Who knows?” There’s a story about the Frierdiker Rebbe: in his later years, they collected money to buy him an air conditioner, because he had difficulties and needed ventilation or something like that. Then he said—our Rebbe—that he didn’t want it paid for with charity funds. So the Rebbe told the chassidim, and two chassidim went to a certain woman and asked her to contribute. She wasn’t... [unclear], and she told them, “Okay, that’s fine,” and in the end she paid the entire cost of the air conditioner. I don’t remember how much it was—ten thousand dollars or a hundred thousand dollars or something. In those days it was roughly the cost of buying an apartment. She really paid the full amount for the air conditioner. Some time later, she came to the Frierdiker Rebbe for yechidus, and the Frierdiker Rebbe stood up in her honor. So she said to him, “What? I’m a woman who eats non-kosher food. I don’t... I don’t do anything. Why did you stand up for me?” The Frierdiker Rebbe said to her, “Who knows?” So that’s where they took the...

25:12 Speaker 14 The story with the air conditioner is strange. I think air conditioners hadn’t even been invented then, but...

25:16 Speaker 13 That her soul is good. Because the soul.

25:18 Speaker 15 Exactly.

25:20 Speaker 9 We don’t know. So the Alter Rebbe gives three... We’re looking now for the connection between making it tangible to ourselves that the body is lowly and the soul is what matters, and Ahavas Yisroel. The Alter Rebbe says, first of all, if you don’t attach importance to the body and consider only the soul, then from the perspective of the soul, your friend’s soul might be higher than yours. You don’t know. That’s the first point. Second, “and furthermore”—there’s another point: “they all correspond to one another.” That goes beyond “I don’t know.” True, perhaps his soul is higher than mine, but perhaps mine is higher than his. That’s possible too, right? So perhaps that isn’t a reason to love him. He says: Yes, but just as all the limbs of the body correspond to one another, and all the limbs draw nourishment from one another and give to and receive from one another—and even the head receives from the foot, and so on—so too, even supposing you really are right and your soul is higher than the other person’s, you still need him. Without him, something is missing from your wholeness. How could you...? Yes. The illustration always given for this isn’t from Chassidus; it appears much earlier, in works of mussar. When they speak about Ahavas Yisroel, they say that our Sages already taught that all Jews are like one body. What does “one body” mean? If a person is holding a knife and accidentally cuts his other hand, he won’t take the knife in that other hand and cut the first hand as punishment. Right? Why? It’s one body. It was a mistake. Clearly, he didn’t do it on purpose. So if I sense the other person’s soul,

27:24 Speaker 9 if I relate to his soul, then it isn’t only that he might be greater than me. Even if he is less than me, he is part of me and I am part of him. We are one. Our bodies are in two places, but we are one thing. How can I hurt the other person, who is me? A person can’t hurt himself. Right? Then he brings a further point. Not only do “they all correspond to one another,” but beyond that, “they all have one Father.” In Chassidus, we speak generally of the name Havayah and the name Elokim as male and female, husband and wife. So if the source of souls is in the living Elokim, and Elokim is the feminine aspect, receiving from the name Havayah, how can he say that they all have one Father? That would imply that the source of souls is in the name Havayah, not in the name Elokim. Do you understand my question? Do you hear the question? Yes. First he says, at the beginning of the verse, the beginning of the sentence, that the source of souls is in the living Elokim, and suddenly he says that they all have one Father, that their source is in the name Havayah. So the simple explanation is that there is the soul as it actually exists in the body. That is already a soul with the distinct form of a soul. Then there is the source of souls, which truly is in the living Elokim. And there is the source of that source, which is in the name Havayah. There is also an even higher level of the soul. It depends which source you mean. Yes. So from the perspective of the source of the source of souls—that is, souls as they are rooted in the name Havayah, above the name Elokim—they don’t merely come from the same source, and they don’t merely correspond to one another. Rather, they all have one Father. Like children, like the drop within the father’s mind before birth, when it is included, included, included within the father himself. So from the perspective of souls as they are included in the very essence of

30:04 Speaker 9 G-dliness, in the one Father, in the name Havayah, it isn’t even that there are several souls that correspond to one another. It is one, one soul, literally one. And therefore all Jews are called actual brothers. Brothers not in the... He says “brothers” here not in the simple sense in which we usually say “brothers”: several children, several siblings, born to one set of parents. No. “Brothers” here is a borrowed term. “Actual brothers” means that they are truly united, that they aren’t two separate things. At its source, the souls of all of us are one soul, one and only one, literally one, by virtue of the source of their souls in the one Hashem. Only the bodies are separate; the soul is one soul. So how can I hate the other person’s soul? It isn’t the other person’s—it’s my soul. But if the body is what matters to me, then I look at the other person and see his body, his behavior, his animal soul. From that perspective, we really are separate. But if I set that aside within myself, if I understand and internalize it until it becomes tangible to me—I feel how repulsive the body is, how much it obstructs holiness, how much harm and trouble it causes, and how it puts the G-dly soul into exile. I feel it, and it pains me. Then I relate to the other person’s body in the same way. So I relate to the other person only from the perspective of the soul. From the perspective of the soul, how can I hate him? And once a person relates to someone else from the perspective of the soul, he isn’t someone else; he is me. And when the other person is me, he isn’t merely part of me—he is actually me. So I love him as I love myself, literally. The only question is, what do we have to do? So why is that? Why does he call it

32:11 Speaker 9 A straight and easy path? It isn’t a path that—it isn’t. It’s not so easy to reach that kind of feeling. Why does he call it a straight and easy path? To reach a point where you feel that the body is repulsive and loathsome is not easy. That takes the previous two chapters, and it’s hard work, real effort. But once you’ve succeeded in bringing yourself to truly feel that your body is repulsive, loathsome and revolting—once you really feel it—from that point on, reaching Ahavas Yisroel is straight and easy. And therefore, those who make their bodies primary and their souls secondary cannot have true love and brotherhood between them, only a love dependent on something else. That is why commentators throughout the generations have struggled with this. And this is what he said... Based on what we’ve just explained, we can understand what Hillel the Elder said about fulfilling this mitzvah: “This is the entire Torah; the rest is its explanation—go and learn.” What does that have to do with it? How does this explain it? Do you sense that there’s another... the beginning of a new line of thought here? Yes? At first he said that when a person contemplates the difference between the repulsiveness of the body and the holiness of the soul, it brings him to joy. What will that joy be? His joy will be in the soul’s release from the body’s imprisonment. That is a straight and easy path to fulfilling the mitzvah of “Love your fellow as yourself.” Right? Now he says: Oh, what is the mitzvah of “Love your fellow as yourself”? It is the root of the entire Torah. It’s as though we’ve moved another step forward. How is it the root of the entire Torah? Because the foundation and root of the entire Torah is to raise and elevate the soul above the body. For what purpose? Why do we have Torah and mitzvos? Does the soul need Torah and mitzvos? Does the soul need them in order to feel Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to see G-dliness?

34:42 Speaker 16 Yes.

34:42 Speaker 9 It doesn’t need them.

34:43 Speaker 16 Why not?

34:45 Speaker 9 Because the soul, as it is above in the treasury of souls—how is it written? What does Eliyahu Hanavi say? “As Hashem lives, before Whom I stood.” It is attached to G-dliness and sees G-dliness, and it doesn’t need the body. When we bring the soul down into the body, the body covers, conceals and obscures it. But though it covers, conceals and obscures it, the soul itself remains as it was before. For the soul, nothing has changed. The soul wants Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It wants holiness. It wants only G-dliness. Now there is someone in its way. Before, there was no one in its way; now there is. What is the purpose of Torah and mitzvos? To remove the body’s concealment and reveal the soul. Right or not? Everyone knows that. It isn’t a novel idea. It isn’t a novel idea of Chassidus. Torah and mitzvos come to reveal the soul. A person as he is born—even a Jew as he is born—if he receives no education and doesn’t... observe Torah and mitzvos, his soul is not revealed. Other people don’t sense it, and neither does he. When a person studies Torah and fulfills mitzvos, his soul is revealed. What does “revealed” mean? It overcomes the body and rises above the body until it is revealed one hundred percent. Now you see him; you see that he is a Jew. Yes? So if all of Torah and mitzvos... And this is expressed in every mitzvah. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu give us 613 mitzvos? Because we have 613 bodily parts—248 limbs and 365 sinews. So with every mitzvah a person fulfills, his soul overcomes that part of the body. His soul now overcomes that part of the body. Yes? Say he gives tzedakah with his hand. Now the soul has overcome the hand; holiness has been revealed here. When he studies Torah, the holiness of the mind is revealed in him, and so on. He walks to do a

36:41 Speaker 9 mitzvah with his feet. The point of all Torah and mitzvos is to raise the soul above the body and give it the upper hand. Yes? How do we reach Ahavas Yisroel? By giving the soul the upper hand over the body. Right? So it turns out that the path to Ahavas Yisroel is really the fulfillment of the inner point toward which all Torah and mitzvos strive. It’s just that Torah and mitzvos, each individual mitzvah, address a particular aspect, while Ahavas Yisroel is truly the inner point, the substance of all Torah and mitzvos. And the Alter Rebbe adds that the foundation and root of the entire Torah is not merely to raise and elevate the soul above the body, but to raise and elevate it higher and higher, to the root and source of all worlds. In the terms we used earlier, not just to the living G-d, but to the name Havayah. And there is another purpose to Torah and mitzvos. What else are Torah and mitzvos for? To draw the light of the blessed Ein Sof into Knesses Yisroel, as will be explained later—that is, into the source of all Jewish souls, so that they become one with the One specifically. We’ll study this at length later on, right after these chapters dealing with Ahavas Yisroel and joy. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu...? Here’s a question. What did we say earlier? The soul as it is above is holy, attached to the living G-d, sees and feels G-dliness, is content and delights in Hashem. What did Hakadosh Boruch Hu do? He brought it down into the body, and now the body gets in the way, conceals and obscures. What is your task? Your task is to give the soul the upper hand, to overcome the body. Why? It was well off above. It was attached to Him above. Leave it above. Why bring it down so it can rise back up? Just leave it above. What is the purpose? Why? Yes? So it is explained in the following chapters that the purpose of all Torah and mitzvos is not only to raise and elevate the soul above the body. It is to raise the soul above the body in order to bring Hakadosh Boruch Hu down into

39:20 Speaker 9 the body. Maybe, maybe... not every... Huh?

39:33 Speaker 3 Good.

39:33 Speaker 9 Let’s add a few more words; perhaps that will make it clearer. It sounds a little abstract to me. We’ve often mentioned the idea that when Hakadosh Boruch Hu creates the world, He creates it in two ways: there is the light that fills all worlds and the light that encompasses all worlds. Right? We’ve spoken about this many times, haven’t we? What’s the difference between the light that fills and the light that encompasses? The light that fills is limited according to the capacity of the worlds, while the light that encompasses is G-dliness so exalted that it cannot be revealed within the worlds. Yes? What is the purpose? What Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants—“Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to have a dwelling for Himself, blessed be He, in the lower realms.” Who is “Himself, blessed be He”? Who is He Himself? The encompassing light. The purpose of creation is that even here in this lower world, the light that encompasses all worlds should be revealed. Through the efforts of the Jewish people, the light that is inherently above the worlds—so much so that it cannot be revealed—will indeed be revealed. Yes? That is the purpose of the world’s creation. In the language of our Sages, this is called the union of Kudsha Brich Hu and His Shechinah. Kudsha Brich Hu is Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the light that encompasses all worlds; and His Shechinah, the Shechinah, is Knesses Yisroel, the root of Jewish souls—the light that fills all worlds. And the purpose of creation is for the encompassing light to penetrate, become invested in, and be revealed within the light that fills.

41:11 Speaker 4 Is that written in the prayers?

41:13 Speaker 9 Hmm?

41:13 Speaker 4 It’s written there in the prayers, in... in vav, in vav, in vav.

41:19 Speaker 5 What is?

41:20 Speaker 4 As far as I...

41:23 Speaker 5 What?

41:23 Speaker 9 For the sake of the union of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah, to unite the letters yud and hei with vav and hei in complete unity, in the name of all Israel. That’s how we begin davening. You daven from a Tehillat Hashem siddur, so you see it only once. But in Sephardic siddurim it’s written before every mitzvah. Sephardim say it before every mitzvah. In Chabad, the custom is to say it once for the whole day, but its content is really the content of every single mitzvah: to unite, to connect the encompassing light with the light that fills the worlds; to make a dwelling for Him, blessed be He, in the lower realms; to unite the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah. That’s exactly what we’re saying. Right? How do we do that? First, we have to raise and elevate the soul of the body, so that the light that fills the worlds—the soul—rises to its source and root. And not just to its first source and root in the living G-d, but to its source and root where “they all have one Father.” From there it can draw back down and reveal here below the light of that one Father of all, the light of the Holy One, blessed be He, uniting it here below in the lower realms. So Torah and mitzvos have two directions. That’s one thing. For a person to live, a person has to breathe, right? To breathe, you have to breathe in and out, in and out. For the heart to pump blood, it has to draw it in and push it out, draw it in and push it out. Right? Every movement of life is a movement. It consists of two movements, ratzo and shov—running toward and returning. Life itself depends on these two movements, ratzo and shov. Even this physical world: the way Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives life to the world also depends on a movement of ratzo and shov. What movement? A Jew’s movement to go beyond the body and cleave to what is above. That’s ratzo: davening, Torah, and then observing mitzvos to draw down

43:39 Speaker 9 and bring that supernal light back down. And that’s what he says here: the second aspect of Torah and mitzvos is also to draw the light of the blessed Ein Sof into Knesses Yisroel, as we discussed earlier—that is, into the source of all Jewish souls—so that one should be united with One specifically, and not when, G-d forbid, there is division between souls. For the Holy One, blessed be He, does not dwell in a blemished place. Just as you can’t pour a drink into a cracked cup. Why? It will spill out. If one Jew doesn’t love another Jew, he damages the unity. If he damages the unity, there’s a hole in the vessel, and no matter how many mitzvos he does, there’s no vessel for the light of Hakadosh Boruch Hu to enter down here. So the whole Torah and the observance of Torah and mitzvos—the very purpose of the world’s existence—depend on Ahavas Yisroel. As it says, “Bless us, our Father, all of us as one, with the light of Your countenance.” When we’re united, there can be blessing. If we’re not united, there’s no vessel. As explained elsewhere at length. So that’s the first section of the chapter. In the first section, the Alter Rebbe explains that Ahavas Yisroel is the heart, the life, not only of Tanya but of all Torah and mitzvos, both in terms of ratzo and in terms of shov. And the way to reach genuine Ahavas Yisroel—to love another person in your heart as you love yourself—really is possible. How? By reflecting on how repulsive and loathsome his body is, and making the joy of his soul alone his main joy. Right? Now there’s a problem here. What’s the problem? Our Sages said, in the Gemara, that if someone sees his fellow sin, it’s a mitzvah to hate him. What do we do with that? What have we learned until now? Our Sages said this. Right? So the Alter Rebbe has to address it, because it seems to contradict the whole explanation, to pull the foundation out from under it.

46:06 Speaker 9 So from here to the end of the chapter, the Alter Rebbe deals with when there really is a mitzvah to hate someone. Let’s look at it quickly. The Gemara says that someone who sees his fellow sin has a mitzvah to hate him, and not only that—he should also tell his teacher to hate him. You saw your friend commit a transgression? Tell your teacher to hate him too. It’s in the Gemara; it’s halachah. This means “his fellow.” When the Gemara says “his fellow,” it means someone who is his fellow in Torah and mitzvos. So, first of all, you may not hate a person who doesn’t observe mitzvos. It’s permitted—it’s a mitzvah—to hate only a Jew who observes mitzvos like you and commits a transgression. If he doesn’t observe mitzvos, there’s no mitzvah to hate him. So the mitzvah to hate applies, first of all, only to the Haredim.

47:08 Speaker 6 They do a great job of it. Oh, boy.

47:11 Speaker 9 Wait, wait, there are more qualifications. First of all, we’ve ruled out... The question was: how can the Gemara say that it’s a mitzvah to hate someone? So first, we’ve ruled out everyone who doesn’t observe mitzvos or isn’t meticulous about them. All right? We’re not talking about them. You’re already forbidden to hate them. Moving on: “his fellow in Torah and mitzvos,” and “he has already fulfilled the mitzvah of ‘You shall surely rebuke your fellow’” with him. If you see your friend commit a transgression... First of all, when are you allowed to hate him? Only if you see him transgress the Torah. Not if he behaves badly. That’s not a reason. You may hate another person only if you saw him commit a transgression with your own eyes. That’s the only reason. A: he has to be Haredi. B: it has to be for this reason alone. C: only if you have fulfilled “You shall surely rebuke your fellow” with him. If you haven’t rebuked him, perhaps he did it unintentionally? Perhaps he didn’t do it deliberately. If it wasn’t deliberate, why do you hate him? Because he made a mistake? Only if you’ve rebuked him several times, until he shouted at you, “I don’t care about Torah and mitzvos,” then, okay, now hate him. He’s acting deliberately. He’s deliberately going against Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Fine, but as long as you haven’t rebuked him, you have no grounds for hating him. He must be “with you in Torah and mitzvos,” and nevertheless, after you rebuked him, he did not turn away from his sin, as it says in Sefer Charedim. Okay, fine. But someone who isn’t your fellow—he isn’t so observant of Torah and mitzvos, or he’s less meticulous than you are—and besides that, he isn’t close to you. There may be a person who, according to the law, really ought to be hated. But we aren’t friends. We don’t talk to each other in ordinary life.

49:16 Speaker 9 Our views aren’t close to each other. So if I rebuke him, he won’t accept what I say, right? That happens. There are people I know there’s no point talking to, because they won’t accept what I say. Right? That happens. So if there’s someone like that, then even if I rebuke him, I know in advance that he won’t accept what I say, right? Well, what’s the point of rebuking him? So I have no reason to rebuke him, and I also can’t hate him, right? Now let’s take the other side. There’s someone who really is a good friend of mine. Yes, we see things similarly and all that, but I know he isn’t so meticulous about mitzvos. What’s the point of rebuking him? I know him, right? He isn’t doing it out of defiance; it’s hard for him. He isn’t opposed to Hakadosh Boruch Hu on principle. It’s hard for him. Right? So again, there’s no point in rebuking him. We’ve narrowed down very, very far the group of people it’s a mitzvah to hate. So regarding someone who isn’t his fellow and isn’t close to him, Hillel the Elder says: “Be among the disciples of Aharon, loving peace,” and so on, “loving people and bringing them close to the Torah.” On the contrary, if there’s someone like that—either he doesn’t observe mitzvos as you do, or he isn’t your friend and rebuke won’t influence him—then the way is not to hate him but just the opposite: to love him more. Perhaps you need to bring him close with warm words. This means that even those who are distant from Hashem’s Torah and His service, and are therefore called merely “creatures,” must be drawn close with thick cords of love; perhaps, after all, one will be able to bring them close to the Torah and the service of Hashem. What

51:01 Speaker 9 will rebuking him accomplish? And if not—say you tried but didn’t succeed—you haven’t lost the reward for the mitzvah of loving your fellow. You lose nothing by trying to speak kindly to a Jew. So what are we left with? Someone whom it’s a mitzvah to hate. There’s no way around it. He’s Haredi, he’s my friend, I saw him commit a transgression with my own eyes, and I rebuked him, and he told me, “I’m deliberately going against Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” With someone like that, I have no choice: I have to hate him, right? There’s nothing to be done. The Alter Rebbe says: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Even those close to him whom he rebuked and who did not turn away from their sins—whom it really is a mitzvah to hate—it’s also a mitzvah to love them. How can you both hate someone and love him?

52:05 Speaker 7 Think of our children.

52:07 Speaker 9 Exactly. And both are true: hatred because of the evil in them, and love because of the hidden good in them—the spark of G-dliness within them, which gives life to their G-dly soul. More than that, one should also awaken compassion for them in one’s heart. If you see a Jew like that who deliberately goes and, G-d forbid... I don’t know, does something like that deliberately, even more than you need to hate him, you need to have compassion for him. Poor man. His soul is in such a sorry state. Because his soul is in a state of exile within the evil of the sitra achra, which overpowers it in the wicked. And compassion nullifies the hatred and awakens the love. As is known from the verse, “Jacob, who redeemed Abraham.” When did Jacob redeem Abraham? Have you heard of it? Mm? Are you familiar with it?

53:12 Speaker 7 Who?

53:13 Speaker 9 There’s a verse like that in the Book of Isaiah, I think: “Jacob, who redeemed Abraham.” Mm? The verse says, “Thus says Hashem to the house of Jacob, who redeemed Abraham.” So the plain meaning is “Thus says Hashem to the house of Jacob”: Hashem is telling the house of Jacob that He, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, redeemed Abraham. But in Chassidus, these words alone are often quoted with this meaning. It’s as though the verse is taken out of context to say that Jacob redeems Abraham, because spiritually, Jacob—the quality of compassion—redeems Abraham, the quality of kindness, and brings him out of exile. He adds in parentheses: King David, peace be upon him, did not say, “I hate them with the utmost hatred”—there were people whom King David really did hate. About whom did King David say that? Only about heretics and unbelievers, who have no share in the G-d of Israel, as it says in the Gemara at the beginning of chapter 16 of Shabbos. That means someone born into an observant home who received a good education, and then, when he grew up, knowingly rejected the faith. He himself decided, through his own misguided thinking, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not exist, that the prophet does not exist. We’re not talking about someone who stopped—who stopped observing mitzvos because he got tired of it. No, no, no, that’s not what we’re talking about. Right? Many people grew up in observant homes and stopped observing mitzvos. So what? Does that make them heretics? Unbelievers? Do they not believe in Hakadosh Boruch Hu? They don’t observe mitzvos because it’s a burden, it’s difficult, there’s the whole world around them, and so on. Right? It’s hard for them; they’re uncomfortable with it. A heretic whom one must hate is someone who knowingly rejected the faith. The Rebbe says that in our generation—in our generations—there are no longer people like that.

55:36 Speaker 7 They have problems at home, you understand?

55:37 Speaker 9 Mm? All sorts of different reasons make life difficult for them, make it difficult to observe mitzvos, and... those are psychological reasons. They aren’t objections of principle. He isn’t taking a principled stand against it, trying to rebel. No. Even all the scientists and those who—I don’t know—who seem to go against the Torah, are they going against the Torah? They simply weren’t taught; they don’t know what it is. In our generations, such a person simply doesn’t exist. There is no one whom we are commanded to hate, and not even anyone whom we are permitted to hate. And if each of us truly elevates the soul above the body, so that our joy is the joy of the soul alone—that is hard work. For that, we need to contemplate how repulsive and loathsome the body is, and how the animal soul interferes and conceals. But when we understand how repulsive my own body is, and how my body conceals the G-dly truth, and I truly have compassion for my soul, and my joy really is the joy of the soul alone, then I will truly have genuine joy and genuine love for every Jew. So this entire chapter is a digression, and in chapter 33 we return to the beginning of chapter 33. It follows directly from the end of chapter 31. There he was talking about—uh, he began talking, at the end of chapter 31, about ways to achieve joy. At first he spoke about how not to be sad. At the end of chapter 31 he began talking about how to be joyful, and then we have chapters 33 and 34, which continue discussing ways to achieve joy.

57:30 Speaker 8 For the whole year.

57:31 Speaker 9 Yes, that’s right. Very nice. Yes.